


Together:  Ever After

by ladyeternal



Series: Angelic Mates 'verse [16]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angelcest Kisses, Everybody Lives, Forgiveness, Foursome - M/M/M/M, Gentle Kissing, Happy Ending, M/M, Men of Letters Bunker (Supernatural), Team Free Love (Supernatural), They Don’t Forget Adam, Wincesty Kisses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:01:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23315044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyeternal/pseuds/ladyeternal
Summary: They’ve saved the world.  But can they put back together what was broken in the process?
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Castiel/Gabriel (Supernatural), Castiel/Gabriel/Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester, Castiel/Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester, Gabriel/Dean Winchester, Gabriel/Sam Winchester
Series: Angelic Mates 'verse [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/115441
Comments: 12
Kudos: 79





	1. One Safe Place

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: If I owned Supernatural, certain events would NEVER have happened and there would be unabashed pr0n. I own little more than a tabby that gets destructive when he feels ignored and am only playing with these worlds for my own amusement and the free entertainment of others.
> 
> Author’s Note: This is it, my friends: the final leg of a journey started nearly ten years ago. It’s been a long time coming for a lot of reasons. I hope you all find the resolution worthy of the time, energy and love you’ve given what’s come before.
> 
> And yes, I’ll be marking this series complete, but that doesn’t mean that I’m never going to write any stories in it again. If the muse strikes, there will be future stories. But other universes have been begging for my attention, and so, while I’ll always dance with the muse that brought me, I’m going to let them have their long-awaited turns. Thank you to everyone that has stuck with me, whether from the very first time I posted a story in this ‘verse on LiveJournal or newly discovering this series on AO3.
> 
> Feedback is adored, so if you like the fic, please comment! And the more details the better; I love knowing what people like about my work. Any comments that I haven’t replied to yet, no matter how long it’s been, please know that I’ve treasured every one, and I will try to catch up on them now that COVID-19 has cleared 90% of my social responsibilities. ~_^. ♥
> 
> Special thanks to:
> 
> Morgan O’Conner, Tiptoe39, dancethecode and secondplatypus. From the initial beta work to midnight phone calls; in the face of writing binges that left me babbly with excitement to interminable droughts of writer’s block: these four amazing people have gotten me through so much with this ‘verse. It truly wouldn’t exist or have been completed without their unfailing support. They are all brilliant writers in their own rights, so go check out their stuff!
> 
> Soundtrack: Complete series soundtrack can now be found on Spotify!

~ooooOOOoooo~

They departed not from the Southern Gate, but by the West.

It came as something of a surprise to both Dean and Sam when, upon leaving Elua’s haven, Gabriel issued orders that the Winchesters’ bodies be moved to his Watchtower, through which they would re-enter the world. Castiel understood, of course; it was easier and easier to read his brother now that his mating bond to Sam had been re-established and the Vessel of a Norse god wasn’t masking the signal. The angels of the Western Watchtower had been commanded by Barachiel since Gabriel’s disappearance, but when it had been revealed that Gabriel was not only still alive but had aligned himself with the Winchesters against Michael, they’d all been under heavy suspicion anyway.

Some loyalties ran deep, no matter how the Host was supposed to be ordered.

When they arrived at the Watchtower, Abariel was the first to greet them, a low cry leaving the angel’s throat as he rushed to hug not Gabriel, but Sam.

“I’m okay, Abbi,” he said, something like a low laugh in the words as he returned the Virtue’s fierce embrace with one of his own.

“I knew you could do it,” Abariel replied, something fervent and proud in his trembling tone. “Oh, Sam…”

“It’s okay,” Sam repeated, smiling as Abbi stood back to look him in the face. His smile grew broader as he recognized the difference. “You finally made an honest Power of him, huh?”

“Archangel’s order,” Gamaliel returned, going in for a hug of his own that lifted Sam right off the ground. “I’m glad to see you all in one piece.”

“It was, uh… touch and go on that one for a bit,” Dean put in. It was clear that he was trying to not stand apart from the reunion. Everything he’d experienced back at Elua’s haven whispered in his heart, reminding him that these angels had done nothing to earn his mistrust. That it was Gabriel’s actions alone that had felt like a breach of good faith, and they’d had no part in them.

His tense frame was still enough that Gamaliel wisely kept his distance, though he’d clearly have preferred to greet Dean with the same warmth he’d shown Sam. “That trick with the holy oil Molotov was inspired. I haven’t seen _anything_ catch Michael off-guard like that since the last Dark war.”

Against his own guarded instincts, Dean offered a wolfish grin. “Thinking outside the box’s the only reason I lived that long.”

Abariel left off hugging Castiel and stepped into Dean’s space. It was a fight to not react by backing away, to only startle when Abariel took both of his hands and not pull out of that gentle grip. After a moment of searching Dean’s face, he smiled softly. “He showed you.”

For a moment, something caught in Dean’s throat. “I, uh… I’m not sure ‘showed’ is the right word for it.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Abariel agreed easily. “And before you say anything: I know you don’t understand yet. But you will, and that’s the important part.” A sigh, soft and slightly anxious. “Perhaps, in time, you’ll even be able to forgive us.”

He wanted to say there was nothing to forgive. He wanted to say that forgiveness was impossible when it involved a conspiracy so massive that it had spanned generations.

“Maybe,” was the word that came out. “I mean, we’re supposed to be family now, right?”

Mal gave a lopsided smile as he came up behind his mate. “Being family doesn’t make forgiveness possible, or deserved,” he said softly. “All it really means that the things forgiveness may be needed for are both harder and easier to reconcile, and that putting in the work to try is more worth the effort.”

“Much as I’m glad to see you both,” Gabriel said at last, “this farewell tour’s starting to drag. Did you guys get a look at their bodies?”

“I’ve verified that nothing is amiss.”

The stranger’s voice had both Sam and Dean bracing as they emerged from the gatehouse. As tall as Gamaliel and just as broad at the shoulder, the angel would’ve blended in effortlessly with the Amazons of old, were it not for her liquid copper eyes and hair the blue and gray streaks of a jay’s wings. “They’ve been repaired expertly by the cherubim, and there’s been no tampering with their minds or memories. I’ve made sure of it.”

“We should keep the introductions brief if we ever wanna get out of here,” Gabriel replied. “Boys, meet Bhavaniel: Principality and Keeper of the Western Gate. Bhae, the Winchester brothers.” He gestured with a smile. “The tall, gorgeous one is my mate, Sam; the less-tall and also-gorgeous one is Castiel’s mate, Dean.”

Bhavaniel bowed, low and reverent. “Your reputations precede you, of course,” she greeted smoothly. “But it is my pleasure to be introduced to you formally. Before you leave, I have something that I’m told belongs to you.”

That got wary expressions from angels and hunters alike. Nonplussed, Bhavaniel withdrew a small box from a pouch hanging at her belt. Holding it up and keeping her hands in a non-aggressive position, she crossed to Dean. “You are their shield,” she told him. “But this is a key to a place where even you may relax your guard.”

Turning it over in his hands, Dean glanced up as Sam crowded closer to see it. Cast from iron and silver, obviously old. It took a moment before Dean’s fingers found the way the panels moved to open it, revealing an antiquated metal key with a six-pointed star on its head that matched the one cast into the faceplate of the box.

“Really, Bhae?” The disapproval in Gabriel’s voice was matched by the sharpness of his glare. “These boys just _didn’t_ live through a debacle that they didn’t ask for. You really think they’ll want anything to do with the mess those wannabe-Watchers got themselves into?”

“That’ll be our decision, thanks,” Dean snapped, refusing to acknowledge the pulsing knot of worry and hurt that throbbed from Gabriel’s end of the bond in response. “What’s he talking about?” he asked Bhavaniel.

“You already know that your mother’s family are a great legacy of hunters whose dedication to fighting the Children of Eve has spanned generations,” Bhavaniel answered, her tone calm even as her gaze flickered nervously to her archangel. “Your father’s family has a similar legacy, but more academic than practical. Focusing on the gathering of information, codifying observations into coherent study, and collating data into a comprehensive archive.”

“Seriously?” Dean looked to Castiel for confirmation.

His mate nodded. “Humans have attempted to compile such libraries many times over the millennia. Most have either been destroyed or otherwise lost to time, as those who attempt to create such places often find themselves tempted to experiment with forces beyond their ability to control, or else they cross paths with something too powerful to be named, catalogued and easily referenced that then destroys them for their temerity to try.”

“But if this is a key, then there must also be a lock,” Sam added. “So does that mean that dad’s family tried to create a library in the U.S.?”

“They did more than that.” Even the breath Gabriel let out sounded grudging. “Since all the cool-sounding secret society names were taken: Illuminati, Silver Star, Golden Dawn, etc.; they called themselves ‘the Men of Letters’. I’ve run across their little boys’ club a few times, but none of them were ever smart enough to figure out that I wasn’t human, or dumb enough to try and stop me if they did. They started setting up shop in America after the dust from 1812 finally settled.”

“All members of their society were sworn to secrecy,” Bhavaniel continued. “And the keepers of their chapterhouses were all entrusted with such keys. The American arm was nearly destroyed in 1958 by the demon Abbadon, who sought to both obtain the key and end your father’s bloodline before either of you could be born, thereby robbing Michael of his strongest possible Vessel. But your grandfather enacted a spell over which he didn’t have sufficient control in an attempt to escape, and as a result, both he and Abbadon have been lost in time.”

“So nobody’s been minding the store for… what… over fifty years?” Dean lifted an eyebrow. “Nobody from any of the other frat houses ever came knocking?”

“They were diverted,” Midael informed him. “If the other chapters had sought to re-establish their American power base, they ultimately would have sought to induct your father into their society, making him vulnerable to the same kind of attack that Abbadon mounted. Within a generation of Armageddon, Michael determined the risk was too great, and thus a series of intercessions was executed. Any members who remained loyal to the organization after Abbadon’s massacres were hidden in other countries’ chapterhouses, and those that stayed were forsworn and relieved of their access keys. With the one in your grandfather’s possession lost to time, the threat to your bloodline was deemed neutralized and their stronghold here all but forgotten.”

“This key was accidentally buried with one of the casualties,” Bhavaniel explained. “When you both decided to return to Earth, Raguel determined that it should be given to you.”

“Why now?” Sam asked.

“Our war has cost you both, and your brother Adam by extension: your homes, your families, your birthrights.” Her copper eyes softened with empathy. “Such things can never be replaced, but after everything the three of you have sacrificed and what you have achieved…” She gestured at the key. “All reparations must start somewhere. Raguel thought that a place you could call haven, if not home, was the logical first step.”

Dean looked at Sam, his thumb shifting the faceplate on its hinge. _Whaddaya think, Sammy?_

_*It can’t hurt to go take a look at the place,*_ Sam offered, though he couldn’t disguise the rampant curiosity underlining the thought. _*I mean, Gabriel’s got plenty of places where we can stay once we get back if we don’t want to go there right away. We can check it out from a distance, make sure we know what we’re getting into, before we decide if we want to use the key or bury it. But, if it was supposed to be ours from the beginning… isn’t it worth at least thinking about?*_

Dean let his thumb slip from the plate, running over the cool wrought metal key cradled inside. He wanted to feel resentment in the face of this new information: on his father’s behalf for what had been stolen from him, and them by extension; at Michael for his presumption to protect his own interests over a young boy’s right to have a link to a lost father, no matter how strange. At the universe for whatever knowledge might be stored in this place that could have been useful to them in this messy, desperate, heartbreaking war.

But the anger wouldn’t come. Nor would curiosity parallel to Sam’s. The bone-deep weariness that had threatened to consume him when they’d faced Famine was back: a numbness that seemed poised to sweep through him again. All that held it back was the whisper in his heart that had been there since his encounter in Elua’s woods: _love as thou wilt_.

If his love was protection, whatever lay beyond the door this key opened could be a threat. A trap. A prison. But if it was half of what the angels claimed, it was also a chance: to get ahead of the curve and stay ahead. To give Sam the home he’d longed for since he’d been old enough to understand that most people considered them homeless. To give Adam a place to recover, regroup, learn how to live again now that he knew what lurked in the shadows.

Maybe even a place where Dean himself could regain some of those childish things that he’d been expected to put away, but should never have had to give up.

“Where’s Adam?” he finally asked Midael, closing the box around the key.

“In a coma in the hospital in Lawrence,” the angel answered promptly. “He is fully healed from Michael’s possession in mind and body; any angel can wake him.”

“So he’s just basically hanging under a sleeping curse until we’re ready to go get him?”

Midael made a face in response to Dean’s sarcasm. “If you must put it like that: yes. It was done not only to allow him to fully heal but also to protect him. If you had chosen to stay in Heaven, there would have been a decision to make, but on the chance that you would choose to return, Michael felt that it would be best if he didn’t wake up alone.”

“What’s the play, Dean?” Sam asked.

A long, slow breath. A steadying pulse from Castiel, reminding him that the fate of the world didn’t hang on this decision. Only that of their family. The lightness of that weight without all the rest left Dean almost dizzy. “The Trickster over there promised us a tropical paradise vacation if we got through this shitstorm alive,” he finally said. “Since we’re going back to being alive, I say it counts. As long as Adam’s okay, then we’ll go get him after we’ve had a chance to breathe regular for a while, and then…” Another breath, shallower but steadier. “Then we go check out this secret clubhouse and see if it’s even habitable.” A pulse of joy from Sam, and Dean shot him a wry expression. “One thing at a damn time, Sammy. I’m getting too old for this shit.”

“Oh, yeah,” Gabriel muttered. “Practically ready for retirement.”

“Bite me.” It was a response so automatic that it surprised them all, but Dean shook himself before anyone could let it derail their exit. “Is there anything else that we absolutely have to handle before we leave?”

Everyone looked around, and then slowly shook their heads.

“Good. Now can we please get the fuck out of here? I’d like my body back sometime in the next decade.”

* * *

Returning from the lands of the dead was beginning to verge on utterly unremarkable for the Winchesters.

It was still a bit strange to be conscious of it, and unlike the previous times it had happened, the sensation of looking down into their own still, dead faces one minute and waking up behind them the next was uncanny to the point of being profoundly disturbing. But they’d manage to wrap their heads around the idea of passing back and forth across the veil, and the minutiae of the process was no longer cause for disorientation.

True to his promise, Gabriel’s island hideaway was their point of return to the physical world. Surrounded by jewel-blue waves, the air was thick with the scent of lush green life, and the house Gabriel had built for himself there was clearly appointed with every comfort. A second house was visible from the main portico: presumably the space Gabriel had created for Dean and Castiel’s privacy, and no doubt it was just as sumptuous.

The very idea of leaving Sam’s side long enough to find out made Dean’s newly-restored breath go shallow.

It was a purely animal instinct. All of them knew it. They’d been reunited in Heaven. Gabriel’s island was devoid of any physical dangers and shielded from supernatural ones. They had a reprieve from Fate Herself, a promise of non-interference and protection from Michael. Hell was in disarray, according to all available reports: demons of all ranks scrambling to take advantage of the power vacuum left in the wake of Lucifer’s death. There was nothing to fear, no urgency to drive them and plenty of reasons why being able to get out of one another’s back pockets would be perfectly reasonable. Expected, even.

None of it mattered more than the magnetic pull they had on each other. Logic said there was no reason for the deep panic that flared when any of them were more than ten steps away from the others. In the end, no matter how rational any of them tried to be, they were all too raw, the lingering shadows of their mutual deaths still too visceral and unprocessed.

After the third time an attempt to talk themselves into letting each other out of their sights nearly resulted in a panic attack, Sam finally gave up on the pretense. He pulled Dean into his arms, reeling backwards towards Gabriel. Still shaken, Dean went without complaint or comment, letting Sam comfort them both. Castiel crossed the space between them with barely more than a blink, his hands splaying possessively across Dean’s back and Sam’s bicep a heartbeat before Gabriel snapped his fingers and they were tumbling down onto the deep, soft mattress of a recessed bed.

Dean was pretty sure he recognized it. So was Sam. Neither of them had the words to comment on it, clinging desperately to one another as the enormity of what had just happened to all of them finally began to sink in.

How long they floated there, none of them knew. Sunk in a haze of emotional and psychological static, the bonds between them rewoven stronger than before thanks to Dean and Sam’s awakened connection, even their thoughts were little more than indistinct, barely formed impulses. One of them was fleetingly hungry, and the food was there, summoned by instinctive grace. Clothing that had stunk of battle and fear had vanished, possibly even burned, replaced by the comforting drape of loose, cool cotton. Touch was no sooner needed than received, be it fingers run soothingly through a head of hair or the flex of bare toes against an ankle for once not trapped within a tube sock that had been repaired so often that the original was likely a memory.

Slowly, the airless sensation that had robbed them all of words began to ebb away, soothed by the tangible proof of each other’s presence. Awareness of each other’s separate physicality began to seep in as their individualities began to reassert themselves. Despite everything that should have kept them apart, they had sunk into each other until there had been no significant psychic difference between them, desperate for reassurance that they were all, in fact, once again alive and whole and in each others’ arms.

Even as they surfaced, words seemed unsafe: too loud even at a murmur, too harsh no matter how gentle the tone that couched them. None of them knew how to start. None of them wanted this comfortable silence to end, and words would surely end it. Because once they started talking, the things that had been pushed aside in favor of other needs would eventually have to be addressed.

Finally, as an uncounted day slid into violet twilight, even the impulse to find safety in silence began to ease away. They could all feel the way words began to hang in the air, the last vestige of life waiting to be re-embraced. But it wasn’t until Dean felt Gabriel’s handprint on Sam’s hip being gently caressed by the archangel’s fingers and raised his head, regarding the Trickster with dark, silent eyes, that the window for them finally opened.

Muted amber reflected back at him. “I couldn’t let him be alone,” Gabriel finally said. “You couldn’t follow where Luci would go… and I couldn’t let Sam go alone.”

“You lied.” It wasn’t a question.

“Of course I did, Deano.” A shadow of a smile, an echo of the smirk they’d first seen almost four years and two lifetimes ago. “I am the Trickster.”

Warm. Safe. Castiel touching him, a steady embrace at his back. Sam gazing at him, not judging his reaction. Gabriel braced for rejection. For hatred. For him to be like Michael.

Ever since they’d learned the truth of their destinies, at every turn, Dean seemed to have found someone that expected him to be no more than a carbon copy of the archangel he was built to carry, good traits and bad. And if he looked back, especially at the pattern of his life from before the truth had been laid bare, the resemblance was certainly there. But even if Michael was incapable of change, Dean was human, and built to adapt, and heartily sick of being typecast.

_It was your heart he broke… love as thou wilt._

He didn’t think about it. Dean had always acted as much on instinct and impulse as anything else. Without stopping to consider, Dean leaned across Sam’s body and pressed his lips gently to Gabriel’s. The archangel startled, but Dean’s hand slid into the sunset silken waves and held him in the kiss, held him and let him feel the way Dean welcomed him back into the fold.

It was a moment suspended in time, the hunter tasting lips sweet as sun-ripe strawberries and mint ice cream. It wasn’t quite chaste, tongues flickering out, delving experimentally, but it was careful, with none of the reckless abandon both were known for. Dean could almost feel Castiel’s smile in his mind as understanding followed on the heels of Dean’s own. Sam’s hands still just touching, knowing as only Sam could what Dean was doing and why.

And then the walls came tumbling down, walls Gabriel didn’t even know he’d put back up. Walls that had kept back memories of Lucifer’s grace behind Sam’s hazel eyes. Of Sam’s voice whispering Lucifer’s words. Of the cruel anguish in his elder brother’s every touch, all of them in the shape of Sam’s hands.

There were tears in Dean’s eyes when the kiss ended. Tears Gabriel couldn’t shed, might never be able to. “Gabe…”

“Don’t, Dean.” There was a quaver in that voice, a tremor in that irrepressible smile. “Please… just don’t.”

Dean nodded, understanding better than Gabriel might have expected. His fingers didn’t want to leave the archangel’s hair, tangling in the thick of it. Someone else mirrored the gesture in his own shorter waves, but Dean barely spared a thought to try and sort out who, caught by the contrast between hesitation and unexplored desire in the blown pupils of those wide golden eyes.

_*It’s all right.*_ Castiel. Sam. Maybe both. Maybe only his own heart, for once unrestrained by everything that he was supposed to be and asking for the one thing it had always been deprived.

It was Gabriel that closed the space between them this time. Dean’s eyes slid closed as the archangel seemed almost to dive over Sam to reach him, their mouths melding as the gentle impact rolled them. By the time they were aware again, Castiel was behind Gabriel and Sam behind Dean, and the archangel was shaking in Dean’s hands, mewling into his mouth. Dimly, Dean was aware that Castiel was now drifting kisses of his own along the tender space where Gabriel’s neck met his shoulder, encouragement murmuring from Sam along the bond.

When Dean turned his head enough away from Gabriel’s, some sarcasm hovering on his lips, Sam’s mouth caught against his, silencing it before it could find voice.

Shock stilled Dean in the wake of it. As Sam’s mouth lifted away, Dean found himself staring up into the eyes of his baby brother. The center of his world. The last person whose kiss he should have craved.

Somewhere in the middle of fighting and loving and dying and coming back, something had shifted. Because it wasn’t horror or revulsion in Dean’s gut. It wasn’t desire either, not yet. Not the kind he felt for Castiel or Gabriel, at any rate. But some invisible boundary between them, already tenuous, was gone.

And in its place, possibility.

Before fear of having misstepped could take root behind Sam’s eyes, Dean returned the kiss. Sweet, fleeting, the intent unmistakeable. Sam’s breath caught in the instant they connected, a tremulous smile crossing his lips as they eased apart.

Dean hadn’t known until that moment that he’d been waiting his entire life to see that smile on his brother’s lips. Not until something inside him seemed to sigh in relief, a weight he’d been unaware of carrying disappearing at last and his awareness of anything beyond the three bodies surrounding him once again going hazy.

Kisses drifting along the back of his neck; Castiel’s mouth, familiar and sure of itself.

Gabriel having shifted to sit up, bent across his waist to kiss Sam while Dean turned to kiss Castiel properly.

Castiel leaning up almost unprompted as Sam bent to kiss him now, the long fingers of Sam’s huge hand carefully splaying along the angel’s cheek as his breath hitched from a bout of nerves.

The brothers watching as Castiel finally caught Gabriel up against Dean’s chest. Faith renewed, and something that promised to become more, shining in those impossible blue eyes as his mouth found the archangel’s. The whimper that left Gabriel as he finally accepted whatever Castiel was offering between their graces, his nimble fingers lacing into that inky hair and fisting there, holding Castiel in the kiss as another barrier came tumbling down.

In another time, it might have gone further, their tangled embraces leading naturally to an exploration of more intimate desires. Now, as they surfaced from a swamp of grief and horror, duty and despair, battle and loss and unrelenting pain, the joy that suffused them was of far more elemental. Instead of a prelude, every kiss they exchanged, sweet as honey from the comb, was a promise.

To never forget this covenant, forged in a crucible of equal parts Hellfire and Heavenly light and tempered by everything in between. To trust that it was at the core of all they would do, even when there was reason to doubt its truth written on every wall.

Awareness of what was weaving between them was peripheral at best; conscious acknowledgment could come later. They had time now: time to kiss and touch. Time to murmur such apologies as they felt they owed each other. Time to be forgiven, and let tears fall without shame in the wake of it.

They had survived. They were together. They would allow nothing to divide them again.


	2. Epilogue:  A New Beginning

_“Adam.”_

Consciousness came back slowly, his mind seeming to surface like a bubble rising through the deep black. Nameless fear broke as he neared the top, driving him to pull back, to retreat from waking what was there to wake for there was nothing left…

_“Adam… it’s okay… you can come back now.”_

Panic clawed at the edges of his mind. It was a trick. It had to be. He’d seen the swords… the battle… it had all been for nothing…

_“Adam. Come on, man… time to wake up. Come back to us.”_

Golden warmth trickled through him, bathing the darkness from his conscious mind. Fear still clung to him like a child to its mother’s skirts, but it could no longer hold him back in the wake of the warmth that beckoned him forward, drawing him up and up and up until there was nothing to do but open his eyes…

Slowly, Adam blinked awake. He would’ve known even if he’d been struck blind that he was in a hospital; he’d spent enough time in the halls of the one his mother had worked in as a child. His mouth felt cottony and dry, and he could feel the tug of intravenous lines attached in his arm. He wasn’t sure about sitting up yet, his head still muzzy from the shift in his awareness.

“Morning, sunshine.”

That voice, strange and familiar all at once, had Adam’s head turning without lifting from his pillow. When his eyes landed on his eldest brother, sitting there with green eyes sparkling and a smile curling the impossibly perfect bow of his mouth, Adam couldn’t help the relief that broke through him. “Did we win after all?” he asked, his voice rusty from disuse.

“I’m not sure what counts as winning or losing in these things,” Dean answered, reaching for the cup of ice chips on Adam’s bedside table and spooning a few into Adam’s mouth, which opened eagerly at the prospect of no longer feeling so tacky. “But we’re all here, alive and kicking. Even got a place to live out of the deal, if we decide to take it.”

It was another spoonful of ice melting with blessed relief on his tongue before Adam responded. “But we saved the world… right?”

Sam appeared behind his brother, Abariel in tow. Both of them were smiling as well, even if there were strange shadows that still clung to the corners of Sam’s eyes. “For now, at least. They’re processing the paperwork to sign you out of here, once the doctors clear you.”

Abariel helped him sit up as Dean adjusted the bed with the remote. Adam could feel the warmth trickling through him from the angel’s hands, his body recalibrating in its wake. “That sounds good.” Almost hesitantly, he looked from Dean to Sam and back again. “Not sure where I go once they do, though… it’s not like I’ve got anything to go back to, with everything that happened.”

Sam gave a lopsided smile as Dean glanced up at him ruefully. “We have… some experience with that,” Sam told him, his tone as bemused as their expressions.

“When I said we got a place to live out of the deal,” Dean continued, “that included you, man. You’re a Winchester; we ain’t leaving you behind.” He paused. “Presuming, of course, you’re okay with moving in with us.”

So much unspoken in the words. So many things they didn’t know about each other. So many years to catch up on, if they wanted to try.

They were blood kin. In the few short hours they’d known each other before Adam had agreed to act as Michael’s Vessel, they’d taken some tentative steps towards seeing one another as more than that. But even then, they’d shared almost nothing of what made each of them up as people. They knew almost nothing about one another: had no idea whether close proximity would bind them closer or fracture what little connection they had.

But Adam had nowhere to go, and no one else in the world. These two, family unlooked for, were offering him a place to land, a roof over his head, and people that would understand the things that might wake him, shaking and shouting, in the middle of the night.

“Let’s give it a shot,” he finally answered, a smile breaking across his face to match the ones his brothers wore in response.

* * *

They piled out of the Impala at the entrance. It was an unremarkable edifice, built into the hillside and looking for all the world like a little-used access point for maintaining the power plant that towered impassively above it.

“From the records I was able to find,” Sam said into the underwhelmed silence, “this place was disguised as part of the same WPA project that built the plant. It’s completely off the grid because of the way they set up the siphons from the river and the plant’s output.”

“It’s likely to be musty as Hell in there, though,” Adam put in. “That’s not even counting airborne contaminants from things that have been left to molder all this time. And any food or potables they left behind are likely to be biohazards even if they were in sealed containers.”

“That’s easy enough fixed, kiddo,” Gabriel assured him, eyeing the non-descript staircase that led to the entrance. “A couple snaps from yours truly and Cassi here, and it’ll be human-proof in no time.”

“We should be wary of using our powers until we know what lies within,” Castiel replied cautiously. “Given the research the previous occupants were conducting, there may be portals or cursed objects that would react to the presence of even angelic magicks.”

“We can handle it,” Gabriel tossed back airily. “We just beat an Apocalypse, Cassi! The five of us can handle the magical equivalent of a couple unexploded ordinances.”

“Cas is right,” Adam agreed. “We shouldn’t be throwing around any weird supernatural stuff until we know what we’re dealing with in there.”

Through the bickering, Dean had remained silent. Sam stepped closer to him, taking note of the way Dean’s thumb traced across the surface of the box that held the key. Out of the corner of his eye, Dean could see the way Sam measured his expression. He didn’t need the bond to know that Sam was trying to feel out Dean’s headspace. It was something he still wasn’t used to: letting his brother and their lovers see what he was thinking before he was ready to say it out loud.

“We can still turn it down,” Sam finally said quietly. “Open the door, throw the key inside and let it lock itself again. Use one of Gabriel’s havens, or someplace entirely new.”

Dean didn’t look up at him right away. Dimly, he was aware that the angels and Adam had fallen silent. Once again, they were all waiting for him to make the decision. For him to lead them, whether that meant breaking a new path or daring the pitfalls of a well-traveled one.

The key in his hand would lead to secrets of their past. But answers always begat more questions, and when it came to the family legacies on both sides, there was more than a little danger inherent in the process.

Gabriel’s confidence that they could easily handle anything that waited beyond that door was genuine. Almost infectious. Castiel’s caution, Adam’s hesitation, Sam’s practicality. All finding a balance in Dean’s mind, arguing their corners.

Eventually, even those inner voices fell quiet as Dean’s decision coalesced, and he walked down the stairs towards the door, key in hand.

It slipped into the lock easily, the passage of decades apparently having had no effect on the internal mechanism. It turned with an audible clank, and the knob turned in Dean’s grip as though it had been waiting for his touch for all this time.

Darkness waited for them, the sound of the door opening echoing in the hollow of the empty space beyond. Adam was right: the rush of air that greeted them smelled musty, old, with the faintest tang of something that had long since succumbed to mold and decay.

It was the scent of a place that had once held life, and that had waited, patient and empty, for life to return to it.

Pulling out his flashlight felt strange without his gun in the other hand. But as Dean thumbed it to life and began to shine its light into the cavernous interior, it felt like a sensation he could get used to.

One by one, they followed him into the dark, letting the door close in their wake. Adam and Sam’s flashlights were out in the next instant as they scanned what they’d thought to be a room but was in fact only a balcony, overlooking the well of a far larger room below.

“Son of a bitch,” Adam murmured as their flashlight beams swept over what lay below them. “Get a load of this place.”

“Ham radio,” Sam identified quickly. “Telegraph… switchboard… map table… this was their nerve center, all right.”

“Found the smell.” Gabriel made a retching sound before snapping his fingers; at once, the air around them was cleaner, no longer laced with decay. “Somebody bailed out without even finishing their coffee.”

“Or their chess game,” Dean added, his flashlight beam sweeping past the archangel as Sam and Castiel found the stairs and descended to get a better look at the archaic technology below. When it caught across what looked like a breaker box in the wall, Dean stepped past him and opened it. Inside were a pair of double-sided knife switches. “Looks like they had just enough time to shut down the power before bugging out.” He glanced at Gabriel. “If this thing fries-”

“Got you covered, big guy.”

It felt strange to trust it. Familiar, but a habit only recently resumed. Dean pushed the sensation away and switched his flashlight to his left hand, using his right to close first one knife switch, then the other.

There was a crescending hum as the electrical system, inactive for five decades, instantly pulsed back to life. Adam stood at the edge of the metal railing, staring as lights and technology older than any he’d ever seen began to wake up, and Dean slowly moved to join him, his eyes finding Sam and Castiel as they stood, awe-struck, in the well below.

“Son of a bitch,” Sam breathed. “Guys, get down here; you’ve gotta see this.”

Dean was the first to reach the stairs, followed by Adam. Gabriel simply translocated to Sam’s side as the now-middle Winchester strode towards the open doorway beyond the map table in the center of the room, sliding just inside to drink in what lay before them and leave room for the others to see as well.

A library, as beautifully appointed as anything Gabriel might have created for them, stretched out before them. Hundreds of books lined the shelves, with a line of tables and chairs forming the spine of the room. And beyond that, a hallway leading deeper into what was clearly a much larger complex than their nebulous imaginings had guessed, the lights winking back to life and beckoning to them.

“Looks like we just found the Batcave,” Dean murmured, gazing around at the Art Deco touches to the design. The weapons neatly displayed, as if placed there only recently rather than the better part of a century prior.

“Better,” Adam added, taking a few steps into the library space and running his fingers along the tables. They left a trail in the film of dust that was likely combined with mold, exposing the smooth gleam of the polished wood beneath. “I’m guessing they didn’t actually let any bats roost in here back in the day.”

“It seems the clean-up won’t take long,” Castiel noted with approval. “Evidently, the seals at the entrance door kept the air exchange from the outside relatively minimal. We’ll need to be careful of the books and other records, however; it’s clear that this room wasn’t built for long-term preservation of the archives in the event of an emergency abandonment of the facility.”

“I’m sure you and Zira and Singer and Sammykins here will have lots of fun with that project,” Gabriel noted, his tone teasing but affectionate. “Me? I’m thinking there’s gotta be a kitchen buried in this labyrinth someplace; it’s not like the guys that used to run this joint would’ve been ordering take-out on the regular.”

Dean found himself walking forward, past Adam’s meandering progress and through to the opposite threshold. Peering down the hallway, he let himself breathe in the space and the secrets it promised. More than a mere clandestine rendezvous point or research facility, this place had clearly been designed to provide for the necessities of life, accommodating the comforts that its inhabitants were used to when the work required more time and energy than could be fit into a day. It had been little more than that, when the men it had been created for had walked these halls, conceived with convenience in mind rather than permanence.

But he could feel it in the air, in the bones that held it up as his hand came to rest on the solid beams of the doorway. This place could be a sanctuary, just like Bhavaniel had said: a place where Dean could finally let down his guard, and just be a man that was loved and who loved fiercely in return.

With a little work, this place could be a home.

“Come on, guys,” he urged without looking back, knowing they would follow as his foot crossed the threshold. “Let’s get a look at our new digs.”

~~~ _Fin_ ~~~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥


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